David relates the tale of their Journey to AQP.

Friends and neighbors, join us now for a tale of a long journey, harrowing danger, untimely deceit, and, ultimately, redemption. And lots of heavy-handed storytelling language (see above. And below.). Here begins the account two guys’ voyage from Abilene, Texas to Arequipa, Peru.

Day 1. Tuesday, June 8th. 10:30 A.M.

Having bid farewell to my dear mother, my sweet baby brother, and my seventeen year old brother who did me the honor of setting down his Xbox controller for roughly 3.8 minutes as I was preparing to leave, my dad and I pick up Bob and hit the long and boring road towards Dallas. The drive is full of enlightening conversation and other stuff.

1:00 P.M.

We stop at a Subway, at my request, for our last American meal. Delicious. (Insert humorous, off-the-cuff reference to Jared the Subway guy [who really has put back on quite a bit of weight. I mean, come on man. Get yourself together.])

2:00

Bye dad! Hug, tear, wave until out of sight.

4:20

Plane takes off from DFW. Excitement abounds. No pretzels are served. Disappointment sets in.

(From this point on, times are either approximate or fabricated entirely. Just kidding. They’re approximate.)

7:20 (8:20 eastern time)

Plane lands in Miami, Bob and I wander around the airport looking for an exit. For a very, very long time. We are eventually successful and are able to catch a free shuttle that takes us to a hotel and we are then able to walk down the street to an IHOP. We both order The Big Steak Omelette (http://www.thedailyplate.com/nutrition-calories/food/ihop/breakfast3A-omelette-feast-the-big-steak-omelette-no-pancakes [which is to say- uhhhhh-mazing]) with an additional three pancakes. Anyways.

11:00 P.M. (12:00 A.M. ET)

We locate a pool at a hotel, fall asleep on pool chairs. The hotel guy comes out at one point, presumably to kick us out, which would be entirely reasonable, but simply tells us to vamoose (say that word out loud. It’s fun.) before his manager shows up at 5. Which we do.

Day 2. Wednesday, June 9th. 2:40 A.M. (3:40 ET)

We catch the hotel shuttle back to the airport. Just kidding. We are politely informed that we must actually have been guests at the hotel in order to continue to use this shuttle service. Bummer. So we hail a cab (“hail a cab”! Like a pro.) that gets us back to the airport where we realize that

4:30 A.M. ET

Our flight, originally scheduled to leave at 7:00, now leaves at noon! Bummer part deux. We find a warm and cozy fluorescent-lit tile corner and camp out until we can go use our breakfast vouchers ($12. Not too shabby, Avianca.). We hang around for a while in the terminal, listening to (cringing at) eight solid hours of smooth jazz and mentally commiserating with our fellow delay-ees.

12:00 P.M. ET.

Sometime around noon, we take off towards Bogota, Colombia, the next stop on our journey. Still no pretzels.

2:30 (back to central time)

We land in Bogota and are, now, at the point where we must start testing our rusty Spanish skills. Bob does the talking. I am grateful.

3:15

Avianca puts us up in a fancy hotel for the afternoon, which, I’ve got to say, was pretty wonderful. They also give us another voucher for dinner, which is at the hotel restaurant. We hang out in the 16th floor room for a while, admiring the view of Bogota, and then go down and find the restaurant. Bob gets some traditional Colombian dish, and I get this beautiful concoction that includes things like stuffed potato skins, avocado, some kind of seasoned beef, fried bananas, etc. Basically it was like four dozen beautiful Colombian women dancing on rooftops and playing tambourines, eighty-seven young children running through the streets throwing flower petals and brightly colored streamers into the air not for any particular reason but simply out of the sheer joy of being alive, twenty-seven thousand piñatas all bursting at the same time and spilling their contents to every whim of the blue and purple wind, and a donkey. All inside of my mouth. Sound impractical? Well… I mean, a bit. But I’d do it again.

7:00

We arrive back at the airport with our Ecuadorian buddies Andres and Rafael, two twins, that we met on the bus to and back from the hotel and continue our default activity of the past 30-something hours: wandering for a while, sitting for a while, wandering, sitting, etc. We talk with Andres and Rafael and find out a bit about their move from Ecuador to Miami to be with their brother that is in a coma due to a terrible car accident. Andres gets caught in customs and has to give up three enormous bottles of perfume that he was bringing back for his novia (that he somehow got through security in Miami? Don’t ask me.), so we hang around and wait with his twin until Andres gets back, extremely put out with the Colombian security. He expresses his displeasure with colorful language.

We say that always odd goodbye that you say when you’ve spent several hours with someone and know, without a doubt, that you will never see him/her again. We do some more wandering and sitting, and then around 10 o’clock, board our penultimate flight.

Day 3. Thursday, June 10th. 1:00 A.M.

We arrive in the Lima airport. Again, using our limited Spanish, we navigate customs and other things and do more wandering until we settle in a little airport restaurant where we buy coffee and camp out for the night. I tell Bob that I’m at the point where my brain is not sure if the sounds around me are real words or simply nonsense syllables. Bob ties several nonsense syllables together. I ask him to repeat himself. He tells me he was testing my statement. It has proven to be correct.

4:30

Bob is able to explain to the lady at the Peruvian Airlines booth that we missed our flight due to delays and that we need our tickets changed. We wait another few hours and board our last flight. The end is near.

8:30 A.M. Relief. Deliverance. Balm of Gilead.

We have arrived at the airport, climbed out of the plane and walked across the tarmac into the smallest airport I’ve seen in a long time, retrieved our luggage, met Kyle, taken our first interesting ride through the sometimes two-, sometimes three- or four-lane streets of Arequipa, and stumbled into Kyle’s house. There you go. Part one: complete. Part two: commencing.

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